Link to Berg video

[Jim Kuhn]

View at your own risk. Very graphic. Berg Beheading (http://www.military-secrets.com/)

[Chris Alger]

x

[trippin bily]

Thank you jim. Perhaps now the people who realise the prison photos are not more heinous or equally as heinous.
Don.t be surprised. You will find many apologist for the murderers here. This does not show the US in a bad light
therefore you will hear many complain it was the US s fault some how.

[IrishHand]

[Disclaimer: I was shown that video at work and deeply regret that I didn't leave the room despite the inevitable repercussions.]

First of all, it's a sad, sad testament to the state of American sensationalism when people want to watch something like this. If there was a video depicting Nazi prisoners being gassed, would you want to see that too? How about a video of an American soldier being sexually tortured because he refused to reveal the location of his unit?

[ QUOTE ]
This does not show the US in a bad light

[/ QUOTE ]
Of course you're correct. Those people did that because they're happy with US foreign policy.

Have some respect for the individual and his family who are the victims of that tragic and unnecessary occurrence. If you want to stand a watch a guy about to jump off a building (also pretty pathetic to my mind) that's one thing - he made a decision to make a spectacle of his life. This is another matter entirely. The victim in this matter presumably had his life taken from him involuntarily. In sharing in this tragedy, you are willingly choosing to allow a group of terrorists affect your life. (And if you're able to claim that something like that doesn't affect you, God help you.) Someone wanted to make a public statement to affect US sentiment and policy, and you're helping the cause. Interesting decision.

[MMMMMM]

One thing at least we agree on; I have zero desire to watch it and cannot see any point in so doing. In fact the mere thought of watching it evokes a revulsion.

The killers are sick bastards. Too bad the rest of the human race has to share the planet with such people.

[Jim Kuhn]

People can choose whether or not to watch this.

[ QUOTE ]
In sharing in this tragedy, you are willingly choosing to allow a group of terrorists affect your life.

[/ QUOTE ]

Whether you like it or willingly allow it terrorists impact your every day life. We are lucky that our every day lives are sheltered by much of these types of things.

[Jim Kuhn]

What impact did this have on our sentiment and policy? What impact did the terrorists expect it to have. Did my watching the video meet the terrorist objectives? Who gives you the authority to decide what I should watch or want to watch?

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
The killers are sick bastards. Too bad the rest of the human race has to share the planet with such people.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yknow what's kinda ironic is they would probably say the same thing about a video/other media of our guys sodomizing their captured people.

Who knows what we've done to some of their 'innocents' over there. We're not exactly lilly white in all this either.

The video is tough to watch though.

b

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]

The killers are sick bastards. Too bad the rest of the human race has to share the planet with such people.[ QUOTE ]


Yknow what's kinda ironic is they would probably say the same thing about a video/other media of our guys sodomizing their captured people.

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

If certain US soldiers sodomized a captured prisoner, then those particular soldiers are sick bastards too. My point still stands.

It's too bad that the reasonably nice and decent people of the world have to share the world with depraved killers, with tyrants large and small, with those who greatly abuse power, with sadistic prison guards even (or especially) in the United States prison system, etc., etc., etc.

[IrishHand]

It's called being human. I've always found the label "inhuman" most inappropriate, since it's generally used to describe almost exclusively human behavior - animal races not being prone to genocidial or mass murdering urges for the most part. (No, nobody used the word 'inhuman' in this thread - it was just a random observation.)

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]
It's called being human.

[/ QUOTE ]

Those humans who do not attempt (at least in some degree) to follow their highest human impulses, but instead always favor their lowest and most base human impulses, perhaps do not deserve the privilege of having been born as human beings.

Human nature has both good and bad in it, but some humans are ruled by the bad part. Worse still, some have no sense of empathy. These beings are the blight of the world.

The word "human" can encompass all attributes of the species, but it can also refer to the higher human aspirations and impulses. Thus some are more "human"--or "inhuman"--than others.

[IrishHand]

I was unaware that human impulses were either high or low, or that human nature was both good and bad. I always figured we had impulses and that they were human nature (since, by definition, an impulse isn't something you control).

I know what you're saying though. I think that people are people - we make decisions about how much we intend to conform our behavior to societal, cultural and/or religious norms and our wants/needs are to a large degree conditioned by those influences. Ultimately though, the "negative" things that you refer to - murder, rape, torture, et al - are basically inseparable from human nature. Those things took place 2000 years ago, they take place now. Does this mean that we shouldn't stop working to prevent or minimize those things? Of course not. My primary objection to your characterizations is that there is some sort of objective "higher human nature" which flies in the face of history and reality.

[Rushmore]

This is one of those issues that is a matter of utterly personal choice.

America functions as America only if choices are made available to Americans (whenever even remotely possible); the American condition is dictated by the decisions that Americans make.

It is my personal opinion that the typical American's desire (choice) to view the beheading of a fellow American (or anyone, for that matter) is indicative of the current American condition.

There was a time when I was young and curious about everything that God had made available to us. I wanted to see everything, hear everything, and do everything I could do.

Now, I only want to experience those things that enhance my life, my family's lives, my friends lives, and, hopefully, the lives of all of humanity.

Lofty ambition? Perhaps.

But what ambition worth having is not?

Why any evolved adult would choose to view the link that you have provided is beyond me, honestly.

But I certainly cannot find fault with your providing it, nor with your right to provide it.

I mean, it exists , right?

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
Why any evolved adult would choose to view the link that you have provided is beyond me, honestly.

[/ QUOTE ]

Same reason many 'evolved' adults slow down and watch a 10 car pile up on the freeway. Same reason they sit and watch OJ driving his bronco on a freeway. Same reason they crowd aroung the landing spot of a possible suicide jumper.

Which reminds me of a story in New York where there was a possible jumper and a guy watching was yelling for him to, 'Hurry up!' because his lunchbreak was almost over.

Of course, that type of thing also happened here in seattle where a gal jumped off the I-5 bridge after backing up traffic for 5 hours.

b

[MMMMMM]

Well, I believe that humans have a capacity for self-awareness which transcends that of animals. Humans also have the capacity to resist acting on their most primitive emotions, to exercise self-restraint. And perhaps more importantly, humans have the capacity to empathize with others and realize that if they would not like something done to them, then perhaps they should not do it to others.

That humans can consciously make such self-aware decisions is one thing that sets us apart from the animals. Such good decisions are what I would call "higher human nature".

All aspects of human nature are not equivalent. Humans possess the capacity for transcendence in various ways. Those humans who never use, nor attempt to use, their capacity to transcend--to transcend situations, impulses, hatreds, etc.-- are failing to use one the most special attributes of being human.

So calling such persons "inhuman" is not strictly accurate, but calling them less than fully human, is.